RicinBeans
- 50
- 18
My soil was given to me by a friend, and he described it as follows: "Ocean forest soil w/ some chitin/worm castings, bone & blood meals, perlite, and super manure."
I'm having some issues with my grow, which is about 5-weeks in, and I'm starting to think that the reason is the soil. I have a grow diary that I'll link here if anyone is curious about the details of the rest of the setup. The main symptom is that growth seems to have all but stopped. One of the two plants seems to have grown some over the past week, but the other has not progressed at all.
A couple of leaves on the bottom of each died, but I'm told that's normal, so I didn't sweat it when it started to happen. The grow has had gnat problems since day-1 though, and I think that may have something to do with it. The other possibility is overwatering, and I'm beginning to suspect that both are kind of happening, and that the soil is the culprit in both.
The reason I believe that is that I let the plants go without watering for 3-days straight now, and the soil is still damp on top. That doesn't seem normal. I don't think it's the conditions in the tent either, as I've had some water overflow from the pot saucers (before I got caddys with compartments underneath to catch water), and the water that dropped onto the tent floor dried pretty quickly. Furthermore, I have two fans in the tent that are blowing on the plants and soil, which the tent floor does not have.
So the theory I'm working with at the moment is that the soil is retaining too much water, which is a) causing the plants to be overfed and b) exacerbating the gnat problem, which could be partially or completely responsible for the stunted growth at this stage.
If you look at my diary, you'll notice I started off in large pots, and though I was watering frequently at first, I was using tiny bits of water at a time, which is why I believe there were no problems for the first few weeks. I think the water had a lot of room to move, and so was soaked up elsewhere in the soil.
If anyone has any input I would greatly appreciate it. I'm considering scrapping these and starting from scratch with new seeds, but I'm going to give it another day without water (today will be the third waterless day) first and see if it won't dry out a bit.
I'm having some issues with my grow, which is about 5-weeks in, and I'm starting to think that the reason is the soil. I have a grow diary that I'll link here if anyone is curious about the details of the rest of the setup. The main symptom is that growth seems to have all but stopped. One of the two plants seems to have grown some over the past week, but the other has not progressed at all.
A couple of leaves on the bottom of each died, but I'm told that's normal, so I didn't sweat it when it started to happen. The grow has had gnat problems since day-1 though, and I think that may have something to do with it. The other possibility is overwatering, and I'm beginning to suspect that both are kind of happening, and that the soil is the culprit in both.
The reason I believe that is that I let the plants go without watering for 3-days straight now, and the soil is still damp on top. That doesn't seem normal. I don't think it's the conditions in the tent either, as I've had some water overflow from the pot saucers (before I got caddys with compartments underneath to catch water), and the water that dropped onto the tent floor dried pretty quickly. Furthermore, I have two fans in the tent that are blowing on the plants and soil, which the tent floor does not have.
So the theory I'm working with at the moment is that the soil is retaining too much water, which is a) causing the plants to be overfed and b) exacerbating the gnat problem, which could be partially or completely responsible for the stunted growth at this stage.
If you look at my diary, you'll notice I started off in large pots, and though I was watering frequently at first, I was using tiny bits of water at a time, which is why I believe there were no problems for the first few weeks. I think the water had a lot of room to move, and so was soaked up elsewhere in the soil.
If anyone has any input I would greatly appreciate it. I'm considering scrapping these and starting from scratch with new seeds, but I'm going to give it another day without water (today will be the third waterless day) first and see if it won't dry out a bit.